AT&T Offers $10 DSL Plans
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Thanks to AT&T’s acquisition of Bell South Corp, customers in 22 states are being offered DSL packages for $10 per month.
The catch is that AT&T has yet to advertise this package, and information regarding the package is buried in AT&T’s website. But, never fear! Your fearless Wisebread blogger has dug up all the pertinent information on this offer!
In order to qualify for the promotion, you must live within one of the 22 states AT&T has designated for this promotion. The promotion requires a 12 month commitment. You also have to be a new AT&T internet customer with or willing to switch to AT&T phone service.
To find out if you qualify for the promotion, click here. If you do qualify, the service should show up on the list of internet packages like in this screenshot.
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I linked you on the dslreports forums!
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18531628
Thanks!
Boing Boing just had a little blurb about this; I know it's cheap, but my morals say no!!
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/06/18/howto_get_att_dsl_fo.html
Unable to find anything about the $10 dollar a month service on AT&T's web site and only passing mention of it on the BellSouth web page I decided to give AT&T a call. They are my local phone provider here in Pennsylvania and I also have their cell phone service (my wife got me stuck in some 2 year plan.) After being passed around and given multiple numbers to call I was finally given 1-800-967-5363. This will allow you to talk directly to the DSL department with any questions regarding this matter. I should note that all representatives I spoke with were obviously outsourced, probably Indian, so it made communications difficult and frustrating.
My first go resulted in the representative saying that the $10 offer was not available to me so I asked to speak with the manager. The manager said the "special offer" was only available in 22 states. I asked him to list them and he gave me the following: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. I asked him why it is only available in those states. He didn't know. I then told him that I had family in California who would be interested in this DSL price, how do I directly access the AT&T web page that details this "special offer." He directed me to att.net which uncovered nothing, then to att.com/localhelp which also uncovered nothing, finally he told me to go to newatt.com which redirects you to attfashion.net a site selling shoes. At this point he was getting frustrated and said he would connect me to one of his "DSL specialists" to resolve the matter.
Can you guess what happened? He redirected me back to the main menu of 1-800-967-5363. *sigh* I waited on hold again for another outsourced Indian representative. This lady was armed with a lot of information. She was obviously reading a printed statement and basically said that the $10 offer is only available where BellSouth owns the land lines. Because Verizon owns the land lines in Pennsylvania the service is not available. I asked when the offer would be available to Pennsylvania and she said she did not have that information.
She then tried to sell on the 19.99 DSL offer. No thanks. Much faster than the $10 offer! No thanks. How about AT&T dial up? No thanks. Its very fast with an accelerator! No thanks. Would you like AT&T wireless? I have it already, it sucks and is overpriced. How about adding another line? *CLICK*
That was my experience. I say to hell with AT&T. Although if you're in one of those 22 states you might be in luck and your best bet is probably ordering it over the phone.
of new ten dollar accounts. It sure took some doing to find the Secret Offer. Now that we BellSouth sheeple know the ropes (thanks, bloggers!), the word is getting out.
The BellSouth customer (I'm happen to be Floridian) qualifies by never having had their broadband service before.
First I tried calling to learn more of the offer. "No, we have no information about any such plan. This is the sales department.".
So I went back online and learned that to find the offer we must go ahead and apply for their DSL service online. Fill in the blank with an eligible phone number. Then the special term offer is revealed on a subsequently visible page.
One thing, the only thing, that the live telephone DSL salespusher gave that was useful, was the sorry fact that my landline offers only a maximum potential speed of 1.5mb.
That made the choice for the low-tier service an even easier decision.
In "seven to ten" business days the FREE modem should be here.
However, and this is a laugh, ATT begins charging DSL customers just =five= days after their order date, or as soon as the first log-on occurs, whichever comes first
(a dollar skimmed here, a dollar there; it adds up when you taliban captives).
The lovely aspect of all of this is the thought that we finally can get an even deal from sweet old ATundT.
Think of your ten-buck-a-month DSL (with modem you get free and own outright by the time of the 12th month), as a sort of "public outrage repair".
I've been stuck on dial-up for over twelve years.
This first taste of DSL will be modest in quality at best, but hey--it sure beats giving money to that dreadful Comcast, no matter what speed. And it sure is good to know that ATundT isn't going to be making a dime for a change
of my dollar! So, if millions of other sheeple will now sign up like wolves, we wolves, in droves will have a pack of FUN times over the corpse of dear old Ma Bell. Can we get twenty million ten buck accounts going soon? I hope so.
Pardon my metaphor. I feel like howling--no, instead, I feel like promoting some minor calumny. Thank you wisebread and other bloggers for getting out this word of The New Deal.
Let's sic 'em where it hurts.
was your modem free?
heya, nice article, you might want to remove the phone number that is in the screenshot
Hello again Wise Bread, where "living larger on less" is the theme. My hat is off for AT&T's execution after all. The free modem kit arrived yesterday afternoon. Good equipment, easy set up. IT WORKED the first time. This is the first time I've ever experienced broadband at all. Compare my tone now with my prior posting above. At this speed I can at last watch YouTube videos. Pages snap open. I surfed all of last night. It's not 8mbs, I know, but =I can live with this=.
Ran a dozen speed tests at various times from various services.
All resulted in over 630kbs downstreaming; most in the 690's.
THIS TERM AGREEMENT is a gift for anyone like me, who has an AT&T land line already as a matter of course, and has never had broadband before. $10/mo will be tacked onto my bill. The TERM AGREEMENT made no mention of any extra charges (I wonder if any will come--time'll tell), but the term agreement does state that the modem is FREE and is mine to keep after the first 12 months.
This is not 3 or 6 or 8mps. But I think, after all these years on slow dialup, I can live with this very happily! It's more than an order of magnitude better than what we had.
All for ten bucks per month, for the next, what? Thirty months?
Summary: The service was delivered promptly and it meets, nearly, the promised potential speed. ATT's product engineers and their field technicians are fine, always have been.
IF you qualify, consider the Term Agreement (it is not an "offer", but a concession to FCC mediated terms) for a viable, cheap, no-BS upgrade from dial-up.
If and when I learn of strictures or charges presently unknown, I'll report back here to Wise Bread.
If the service goes kersplat, slows, or otherwise hiccups,
I'll make another report. For now, day one: I feel that the little guy has won this one. That means you have won.
Off to YouTube,
MC
The hidden extra cost imposed is $6/mo for "access", a charge "allowed by the FCC". So, the service is $16/mo, bottom line.
The quality: My terminal is several hundred feet from the neighborhood's main hard-wired junction box. My 786kbs-paid-rate is verified available there.
Losses in the buried cable between the box and my computer cost about 100kb.
Speed tests always show the same rate: about 690kbs on average for download, and about 108kbs upload.
That's fine and fair. The service is reliable. There has not been an outage yet noticed.
The bandwidth is adequate for downloading YouTube quality videos in streaming mode.
Therefore, I'm happy with the service. It beats dealing with terribly, unresponsive, unresponsible, unreliable Comcast cable.
A good deal.
I have had the AT&T 10.00 plan for 3 months and there is no other charge on it. $10.00 flat and that is it.
'Naked DSL': how to find and get the best price
By Michael Sorkin
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Friday, Jan. 18 2008
Here's something you should know when you order DSL service from AT&T: The
company sells the same speed Internet service at $10, $15 and $20 per month.
— The $14.99 service is called Basic DSL and is the easiest to get. Anyone with
an AT&T landline phone can order it by phone or online.
— The $10 DSL service can be ordered only online, and hundreds of consumers
have had trouble signing up for this, the company's cheapest-ever DSL. AT&T
says it won't sell it to anyone who is already an AT&T Internet customer.
— The newest Internet service is called DSL Direct Basic and costs $19.95. It
can be ordered only through an AT&T call center, but some sales reps say they
have never heard of it.
There are four DSL Direct plans; the $19.95 version is the cheapest and
slowest. The Direct plans are the only ones AT&T will sell consumers without
AT&T landlines.
This type of service is known as "naked DSL."
Each DSL Direct plan costs at least $4 more per month than the same plan for
customers who have AT&T landline phones.
DSL users don't need a phone; Internet service works fine without one.
AT&T is free to charge the higher prices because Internet rates are unregulated.
As for the $10, $15 and $20 Internet plans described above, all are rated at
the same speed: up to 768 Kbps downstream. That's too slow for downloading
movies but may be fine for e-mailing or Internet surfing.
Why charge three prices for the same speed?
AT&T spokesman Andy Shaw says customers have different needs. It's not unusual,
he says, for companies to offer different customers different prices.
AT&T offered $10 DSL reluctantly. The company already was charging higher
prices for Internet service and had no incentive to offer it so cheaply.
As for naked DSL, AT&T wants to sell you as many services as possible:
landline, Internet, cell phone and video. That's called bundling. Naked lets
consumers avoid bundling by choosing only what they want.
But about a year ago, the Federal Communications Commission required AT&T to
offer the lower-cost services in exchange for approving its purchase of
BellSouth.
AT&T began quietly offering $10 DSL about midyear on its website. AT&T said it
would not provide a phone number or e-mail address for anyone needing help.
By the end of the year, the company also began offering naked DSL. It is
quickly gaining popularity with the growing number of computer users who have
traded landlines for cells.
The FCC is requiring AT&T to offer a naked DSL plan for less than $20. An AT&T
spokesman said last month that consumers shouldn't sign up for the $19.95
service online or by calling. He told them to go to company stores.
That advice turned out to be wrong, and Savvy received more than a dozen
complaints.
Mindy Lynn Thomason, a financial analyst from St. Charles, hurried to an AT&T
store, where "they told me I could only sign up by calling."
She called — and reached a sales rep who said he couldn't help her.
This week, AT&T's Shaw offered different advice: He said to sign up for the
$19.95 Direct Basic only through a company call center.
That $19.95 plan is AT&T's cheapest naked DSL service — and the only one for
which the company requires a 12-month contract. The other plans are
month-to-month.
AT&T's site says to call 1-800-288-2020 to sign up for its more expensive DSL
Direct plans ($23.99 to $38.99.) We reached a sales rep who said he knew
nothing about any such plans and transferred us to 1-800-264-0002.
As first reported by hearusnow.org on the Consumers Union website, AT&T is
asking callers seeking naked DSL to provide their AT&T landline phone number.
We were asked three times.
But consumers who want naked DSL won't have a landline — and don't want one.
That's why they want naked.
"They want to sell you a phone line," Thomason said after her experience.
She says after nearly a day, she finally connected with a sales rep who signed
her up for AT&T's $28.99 Direct Pro DSL plan. Service started this week, and
she's delighted.
But she chides the company for making it so hard: "They do a good job of hiding
it."
We called AT&T's Shaw, who responded:
"I apologize. We want everyone who calls in to be a customer. The vast majority
of these orders work. Sometimes we make a mistake, and we try to fix it."
msorkin@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8347
It’s a real chore to find the unbundled DSL price that’s advertised, but here is the direct link.
http://attsignup.com/att_dsl_for_$10.htm
i am a single mom and ihave a lot on me i have $14.99 dsl but instead of getting that rate i would love to have $10.00 can some body be able to change that for me i will be so happy, so can you be so kind and chaeng that for me,thanks so much.